about

Starting on May 21st, IRM will release 16 compilations inspired by David Lynch & Mark Frost's cult TV series Twin Peaks, to celebrate the broadcasting of the long-awaited season 3.

Three of those volumes will be dedicated to abstract hip-hop, instrumental hip-hop and underground rap. As an introduction to that particular side of the project (which will feature almost 200 musicians and bands from 35 countries in the fields of experimental/ambient music, electronica/IDM, noise, post-rock, indie pop/folk and so on), we present you those 5 tracks as a first glimpse of things to come. They will also be part of the official compilation volumes to be released later this year.

-----

If you want to know more about this project, spread the word about it, read our Twin Peaks themed interviews of the artists involved in English + French and discover more excerpts including music videos, please join our Facebook event : www.facebook.com/events/144707402675260/

It all started with Elnorton’s idea : "I thought that with the release of Twin Peaks’ third season in 2017, we could stick to the news by setting up a compilation project around this theme right away, we could just ask artists we like to compose original tracks "in the style of..." Badalamenti or even Twin Peaks itself. Because here is really an influence that loads of people share, to which many artists are sensitive, and it could do for something very unusual in the end." Nine months later, about 200 original tracks fell in IRM’s hands, composed by musicians coming from 35 countries, and 16 parts are due to release to celebrate David Lynch & Mark Frost’s cult series, IRM-style : a project that you’ll discover on our Bandcamp beginning on May, the 21st, which is the day the season 3 pilot will be broadcasted... and we offer a slight foretaste to you... right now !

After the release of the infamous Nicotine trailer with an original score by Marjen, and the several videos (by Féroces, Oso Blanco and Richard Kapp) that we sprinkled through the flow of our interviews, that will carry on until the end of the year with more exclusive features coming up in the following weeks, we bring you a big piece, especially for underground rap and loud beat connoisseurs. 3 out of the 16 compilation volumes are, in a way or another, linked to that kind of hip-hop we really like and its many forms (with a predilection for instrumentals and abstract). Welcome To Twin Peaks will therefore be dedicated to this style with 5 artists who contributed to these three volumes and an artwork designed by Bertrand Blanchard, Hello L.A.’s founder, one of the labels with whom IRM might turn the digital adventure into an analogic odyssey... but we won’t tell more about that for now.

The fact that we intentionally opened our compilation to three hip-hop volumes will doubtlessly make the hair of the most closed fans of the series stand on end. But in fact this music style has now become so wide that we though it was evident that it could encompass every Lynchian mood by itself. And we can say it now, we weren’t wrong : uneasiness, drowsiness, languidness, onirism will all be there, as well as nightmares, unreality, anxiety, gloom. And with the magic of hip-hop music (and its musicians), some tracks take all these moods and scatter them into a single piece !

With Welcome to Twin Peaks, we chose to introduce you to 5 artists and their tracks that we picked up at random, maybe because they came perfectly well one after the other, but also because the whole range of emotions that Angelo Badalamenti put in his soundtracks is present in them.

Follow the guide, here’s the virtual tour : with Dakota, we were accustomed to electro-hip-hop abstract tracks which were rather dark (Mandala) or even cold and rough (Le Temps Passe and Libertés Nomades with Monsieur Saï), but the beatmaker from Aveyron never forgot to add melody to the mix (Forever Lost with Monsieur 6000). His Twin Peaks (B.Frank) mixes all of this and sets a heavy and obsessive scenery that gives the perfect way to Boxguts. The New-York MC who told us in his interview that he wanted to mix surreal horror to comedy offers a Gas Pump that stands like a primal tension climax, and his raspy flow bulldozes a way through the crystal maze that the ever-excellent Dr. Evazan built in production. As for Crookram, he creates an Avalanches-like breathing in the middle of our small EP with his Sometimes My Arms Bend Back, its reversed speeches set in contrast with the Dutchman’s electronic lyricism. They bring a chaos element in weirdness that perfectly sticks to the next track. Make way to Early Season Leland set in Uncommon Nasa’s highly-organized mess ! Between mystery and action, heaviness and nightmare, the rapper/producer from New-York is brutally delicate, experimental and efficient at the same time. He sets himself between The Twilight Zone (Mink Swimming Pools) and Twin Peaks, and gives way to the finale led by John E Cab ! The beatmaker from Philly ends the EP with Fifteen Fifty, the most cinematic track out of the 5, a 3 parts track in which he goes in every direction possible and with which every single Lynchian moods are palpable. The conclusion is perfect and we can loop the loop !